Will new Council President Lorena Gonzalez follow through on her promise that City Hall’s reset “has the potential to put a brighter spotlight on what the mayor is or isn’t doing”?

“We’re not going to be pushed around … and I do think the election results have strengthened that dynamic,” SDCI Director Nathan Torgelson’s re-appointment is an early test. 

Both the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee [LUN], under CM Dan Strauss’ leadership, and the full Council, under Council President Lorena Gonzalez, will have an opportunity to “not be pushed around” by a poor re-appointment decision by Mayor Durkan in coming weeks. Below is the full text of a letter sent by downtown resident John Sosnowy to CM Strauss and other members of the LUN Committee in opposition to Nathan Torgelson’s re-appointment:

February 15, 2020

Dear CM Strauss,

Thank you, Dan, for postponing your Committee's discussion on Nathan Torgelson’s Re-Appointment until February 26.I hope that you and other committee members and staff are reviewing his entire performance record in an unbiased fashion during this period.If you do, I am confident you will find that the entire culture of SDCI needs to change, and that change will only come from new and outside leadership at the top.

My family, my fellow residents at Escala, and numerous members of the Downtown Residents Alliance, have had extensive dealings with SDCI during Torgelson’s tenure. We believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but there have been too many “questionable” SDCI decisions in recent years to ignore. Here are just a few examples of the failings of SDCI to be an “honest broker” in dealing with taxpaying downtown residents:

1. My wife and I were given false information about our zoning when we inquired personally at the SDCI [then Planning Dept] desk before we purchased our unit in 2013.

2. Nathan Torgelson has failed to respond to numerous letters, specific questions, and suggestions over his four year term as SDCI Director. A copy of one such letter, from May 30, 2019 [http://www.seattledra.org/home/2019/5/30/fairness-in-design-review], still remains unanswered.

3. Under Torgelson’s leadership, SDCI staff has mysteriously lost and/or delayed posting important documents to the SDCI project portals, making it much more difficult and costly to challenge poorly designed projects.

4. Under Torgelson’s leadership, SDCI staff has shown no scruples about misrepresenting the facts in order to preserve the Developer/SDCI “unholy” alliance to the detriment of the future of our City.

5. Are the many failings of SCDI intentional or the result of incompetence? Either way, the buck stops at the top. Torgelson does not deserve re-appointment for another four-year term.I would be happy to meet with you to discuss this further. As we both know, the short public comment period on the 26th will be too little too late.

Thanks.

John

John Sosnowy

Downtown Resident